Familiar old faces looking to spoil Leinster’s double bid

In a season marked by injury woes it’s perhaps appropriate that Joe Schmidt should have to deal with more of the same in choosing his lineup for the Amlin final.

Leinster have named a team shorn of both Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy due to injury and have chosen to leave Leo Cullen and Cian Healy on the bench, perhaps with the RaboDirect Pro12 final the following Saturday in mind.

Stade Francais, tonight’s opponents, boast a triumvirate of decorated honorary Irishmen returning to these shores: Paul Warwick, a Heineken Cup winner with Munster, Stan Wright, the Cook Islander who evolved from a who-is-he-again into an essential member of two Heineken Cup winning Leinster teams, and enigmatic genius Felipe Contepomi who did so much to get Leinster that first European title. Both Wright and Warwick will start from the bench while the best Contepomi can hope for is water boy duty as he made his comeback from injury too late to be registered.